Cover of Of no account

Of no account

  • Free to read
  • 4 hours to read
  • 23 chapters
  • Reading level: 7th grade

"Of No Account" by Ruth Lamb is a novel written in the late 19th century. The story revolves around Adam Livesey, a humble striker in a foundry, who grapples with the burdens of life, his strained relationship with his discontented wife Maggie, and the repercussions of his mother's influence on his upbringing. The novel explores themes of duty, family, and the quest for meaning amidst life's hardships. At the start of the book, we meet Adam Livesey, whose life has been marked by hardship and unfulfilled potential. He reflects on his mother's struggles and how her sorrowful demeanor affected his childhood, leaving him with a deep yearning for love and a sense of worthlessness. As he navigates his solitary life, burdened by the responsibility of caring for his growing family, the arrival of a new manager, Mr. Drummond, introduces the possibility of change. Through subtle connections with Mr. Drummond, Adam begins to hope for a brighter future and contemplates the chance of improving his life, despite his initial resistance to external influences. The opening establishes a poignant narrative of struggle and the faint glimmer of hope for transformation.

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  • Working class
  • Christian life
  • Conduct of life
  • Families
  • Spouses
  • Foundry workers

Read the opening

Chapter I: How Mrs. Livesey "Gave Up."

"I DON'T know why you should trouble yourself to come after me. I'm o' no account. What matter does it make whether a poor chap like me spends his Sundays at home or in the streets, at church or in a church with a chimney?"

The speaker, Adam Livesey, was a man whose appearance suggested that the world had dealt hardly with him, and that he had found life, regarded as a journey, very rough travelling.

He was spare of form, rugged of feature, not given to much talking, but usually civil spoken, and not unpleasant in manner. There was, however, one exception. Adam Livesey was deemed surly by those who ventured to interfere with what he considered his strictly private affairs. He might not say in so many words, "Mind your own business, and let mine alone. It's a hard case that a quiet fellow cannot be left to himself by folk that are nothing to him. I wasn't meddling with you." But he looked all this and more.

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Contents

  1. Chapter I: How Mrs. Livesey "Gave Up."
  2. Chapter II: "For Better, for Worse."
  3. Chapter III
  4. Chapter IV
  5. Chapter V
  6. Chapter VI: "The Thin End of the Wedge."
  7. Chapter VII
  8. Chapter VIII
  9. Chapter IX
  10. Chapter X
  11. Chapter XI: "The Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ."
  12. Chapter XII
  13. Chapter XIII
  14. Chapter XIV
  15. Chapter XV
  16. Chapter XVI
  17. Chapter XVII
  18. Chapter XVIII
  19. Chapter XIX
  20. Chapter XX
  21. Chapter XXI
  22. Chapter XXII
  23. Chapter XXIII

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About this edition

This free edition of Of no account by Ruth Lamb comes from Project Gutenberg eBook #73416, released 2024-04-17. It is in the public domain in the United States, so you can read it here in full at no cost, on any phone, tablet or computer. Genre: Novels, British Literature.

Summary provided by Project Gutenberg (automatically generated).

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